Baguette blamed for Hadron Collider fault

Scientists have blamed a bird that dropped a "bit of baguette" into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva for a technical fault that emerged this week.

The incident caused significant overheating in sections of the particle accelerator's 27km tunnel, The Register reports.

LHC machine coordinator Dr Mike Lamont said that the fault had been caused by "a bit of baguette on the busbars".

When asked if similar incidents could occur once the LHC becomes operational later this month, Lamont added: "It's inevitable. This thing is so complicated and so big, it's bound to have problems sometimes."

The incident resulted in a temperature rise to almost 8 Kelvin as opposed to the normal operating temperature of 1.9K, which would have caused an automatic shut down had the accelerator been running.